Ex-Disney CFO, Former Fox Executive Invest in MovieLaLa Network

MovieLaLa, a social network that helps studios market films to specific fan groups, added two more U.S. entertainment-industry executives to its list of investors.

Jay Rasulo, former chief financial officer of the Walt Disney Co., and Jonathan Miller, former chief executive for digital media at News Corp., made an undisclosed investment in the company, said Dana Loberg, co-founder of MovieLaLa.

MovieLaLa has raised $1.4 million in two seed rounds and is now talking to investors about a series A funding, Loberg said. Rasulo and Miller joined former executives from Lucasfilm Ltd. and talent agency William Morris Endeavor as angel investors, said Loberg, who founded MovieLaLa in 2014 with Sahin Boydas.

After creating an app that featured a mix of trailers, showtimes and links for buying tickets, Loberg and her team will design products for businesses and to help form partnerships with messaging apps. MovieLaLa has built technology that makes trailers more engaging and provides detailed data on viewership.

“MovieLaLa sparked my interest, having worked at a company that distributed large films for a long time,” Rasulo said in an interview. “Studios have become much more analytic in using data in trying to place trailers and other materials in the path that audiences are moving, and social and chat are two of the hottest new paths.”

Loberg also is working as an intermediary between Hollywood studios and messaging apps popular outside the U.S. that want movie-related stickers, photos and trailers.

“When it comes to studios and movie marketing in developing countries, studios are still doing traditional marketing,” Loberg said in an interview. “They aren’t marketing on mobile, which is where the audience is.”